It’s rare for MTG cards to receive errata. Even rarer is for an errata to happen before the prerelease of a new set. Yet, thanks to a printing error, that is exactly what is happening in Edge of Eternities. Wizards of the Coast has just announced a day zero errata to a humble Edge of Eternities common that was definitely a touch too powerful.
Diplomatic Relations Errata
Diplomatic Relations may just read like your average green Bite spell at first glance, but there’s a glaring detail missing: nowhere in this card does it say your own creatures need to be involved. This means, as written, you can have an opponent’s creature deal damage to another creature they control. This detail prevents Diplomatic Relations from being blown out by a removal spell on your own creatures; a common weakness of Bite spells.
Diplomatic Relations was so powerful as initially printed that there was a decent chance it could see play past just Limited. Standard Mono-Green aggro decks could have used this card to deal with problematic roadblocks post-rotation.
That said, Wizards has revealed that this exact detail of Diplomatic Relations was a mistake. The errata announced today changes the oracle text of Diplomatic Relations to the following:
“Target creature you control gets +1/+0 and gains vigilance until end of turn. It deals damage equal to its power to target creature an opponent controls.”
Wizards of the Coast
This, obviously, makes Diplomatic Relations a lot worse. The card now functions as your average run-of-the-mill Bite spell, with all the associated weaknesses attached. Considering this, will the card have a chance of seeing any play now?
Is Diplomatic Relations Still Good?
From a Limited perspective, Diplomatic Relations is still a decent removal spell. Now, the card has some added risk since you need to use your own creature to deal the damage. That said, being instant speed should allow smart players enough agency to ensure they don’t get blown out.
Outside of Limited, however, Diplomatic Relations is now unplayable. Three mana is far too much for an effect like this. In constructed, removal is much more efficient, so there’s a very high chance your opponent can blow you out for less mana than you spent to cast Diplomatic Relations.
The same goes for Commander. There are far better cards that can do what Diplomatic Relations is interested in doing, and for less mana.
This isn’t surprising, really. Diplomatic Relations was clearly meant to be a Limited removal piece for green. It wasn’t meant to be one of the most powerful common green removal spells we’ve ever seen. The card will still be a strong pick in Limited for green decks, but that’s all it will be.
Prerelease Confusion
The updated text for Diplomatic Relations will be reflected on digital MTG clients like Arena and Magic Online, but it is far too late to change the paper text of Diplomatic Relations for Prerelease. Considering that this card will be seen in plenty of Prerelease pools during Edge of Eternities Prerelease, this could cause a lot of issues.
For better or worse, this isn’t the first time that a prerelease issue or day zero errata has happened. Thankfully, this means MTG players and event organizers should know how to handle this situation. Ideally, store owners and/or players can communicate to everyone that this errata has happened, and to watch out for it. In case they don’t, do be sure to remind people if needed.
As confusing as it seems on the surface, thankfully, MTG players are pretty adept at handling this kind of thing. Hopefully, this means this issue shouldn’t be nearly as bad as you might first think. Still, it’ll definitely be worth watching out for just in case you see someone playing Diplomatic Relations incorrectly.
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